Xfinity Ad Claims Xamined: Found to be not Xactly Accurate

September 1, 2011

Comcast’s boastful claims about its Xfinity service having the “best HD Picture quality” and the “fastest Internet available” should be changed or dropped because they’re not accurate, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus said.

The body looked into a complaint lodged by Comcast rival Verizon, whose fiber optic service FiOS was the target of some of the ad claims.

“At issue in this case were the truth and accuracy of advertising claims made by Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, for its Xfinity service,” the NAD said in announcing its analysis of the ads.

The ad agency that produced Comcast’s promotion based its quality claims on testing conducted by two firms in 2008 and 2011, which actually showed users favored FiOS — although not to a statistically significant level.

Because Comcast cannot demonstrate it is superior to FiOS or other competitors, for that matter, the NAD say its time for the company to stop claiming it has the “Best Picture Quality Available.”

The division — which is a self-regulatory forum for the advertising industry — also found that while the ad agency had a recent study that showed Xfinity was “Number 1 Rated for Call Clarity,” because the study didn’t include FiOS the claim should be dropped.

NAD also said the company has no support for its claims of being the “fastest Internet” and should stop staying that it is and likewise to stop the altered “fastest Internet to more homes than anyone.”

Lastly, Comcast’s ad agency said it has already stopped its claim that Verizon doesn’t offer round-the-clock customer service but needs to drop it from other venues where it might still appear.

Comcast responded to the report by saying the company “disagrees that there is any reasonable likelihood of consumer confusion with respect to the narrowly tailored picture quality, call clarity, and Internet speed claims at issue in this proceeding, but will take NAD’s concerns and recommendations into consideration … .”